The power required to recover C 3+ hydrocarbons from crude carbon dioxide comprising C 1+ hydrocarbons and hydrogen sulfide may be reduced by distilling the crude carbon dioxide to produce carbon dioxide-enriched overhead vapor and C 3+ hydrocarbon-enriched bottoms liquid such that the hydrogen sulfide is rejected with the overhead vapor. Power consumption reductions may be achieved by incorporating a heat pump cycle using carbon dioxide vapor as working fluid to provide at least a part of the refrigeration duty and using a side reboiler to reduce the bottom reboiler duty. Where the bottoms liquid is further processed to produce "lighter" and "heavier" hydrocarbon fractions, the process enables optimization of upgrading crude oil on the basis of API gravity, Reid Vapor pressure and/or viscosity.